Thankful Thursday

I had a thought earlier today that I should start doing "Thankful Thursday" on my blog where every Thursday I would write one thing I felt thankful for that day. Then I thought "Nah, that's silly. Besides, when ever I write (or in this case type) about my feelings or serious things it never comes out the way I want it to." But I went to this tonight:

And now I have something that feel I need to share. Stephanie Nielson (recently featured in a Mormon Messages video) and her husband were in a private plane crash in St. Johns Arizona in August 2008. They both survived (there was one other passenger who sadly didn't survive) but were severely burned. Stephanie was the more critical of the two. She suffered burns over 80% of her body and was in a coma for three months. The Mormon Messages video gives an overview of the experience but tonight she talked about it in detail. She talked about how long it took her after coming out of the coma to build up the courage to look in the mirror. She told us how when she did her first thought turned to her 4 children. She thought about what the other kids at school would say to her children when they saw her, or even if her children would ever be able to look at her the same again. She also mentioned that when she looked in the mirror for the first time she noticed how beautiful her eyes were. She felt God's love reflecting back at her through her eyes. A love and a beauty that could never be taken away, and how that was a lesson she learned over and over again through this trial and she was thankful for the trial because of that. She exemplified to me what it means to "endure it well."

So on this "Thankful Thursday" I am thankful for beautiful women in my life. I am surrounded by them, and each of their shining examples has made me into the person I am today. As Stephanie spoke, the names of 3 particular women kept coming to my mind and tears would start running down my face as I thought of the impact they have had and continue to have on me:

My amazing sister-in-law
My dear friend and 46th ward sister, Emily N.
And my sweet cousin Melanie M.

These women are BEAUTIFUL! The light of Christ radiates through their eyes. I have watched as they have endured various trials in this life that I wouldn't wish upon any one. My heart aches when I have seen them weighted down with pain and grief and I constantly wish that I could share their burden. And as they still grieve and struggle at times, my heart goes out to them. But through these trials I have also seen them rely on God's love. I have watched their faith and testimony grow and help the faith and testimony of others. I have seen beauty in it's purest form through their smiles and through their willingness to constantly serve their families, their children, and all others even through their trials. As I sit here with my sweet angel daughter nestled and sleeping in the crook of my arm, I pray that as she grows up she will also be surrounded by beautiful women such as these.

There's no such thing as a free lunch...

But there is such thing as getting food for practically free at the grocery store!! This week I got a membership with Coupon Sense which is a company that tracks coupons online, from the newspaper, and some magazines and tracks all the sales at local stores so that you know exactly when you can use different coupons and maximize your savings. Some of my sisters have been doing this for years and I'm amazed at how much they save. So I am giving it a try. On Monday I noticed my first freebie that I could get. So for home evening Robert and I went to Smith's and got these 2 cans of soup.

Campbell's Select Harvest Soups usually sell at Smith's for $2.99 each. Coupon Sense made me aware that this week they were on sale for $1.00 each, and they also made me aware that there was a coupon that I could print off of Campbell's website for a $1.00 off of 1 can of Select Harvest Soup. You can print off the coupon a max of 2 times. So we did, and we each went and got to pick which soup we wanted and all we had to pay was the sales tax which was $.03 per can. Don't let the big TODAY YOU SAVED number fool you. It only includes how much we saved on the sale with our Fresh Values card, not also how much we saved with the coupon.
See! 100% savings baby!!! A total of $.06 for $6.00 worth of soup!
I'm still a little skeptical on how much this will save our family in the long run. I don't doubt it saves a TON when you are shopping for a family of 5 or more, but when you are only shopping for 2 adults and a baby I don't see us saving much. Also, with the way I cook I use more perishable items than non-perishable so it's not like I can buy a ton of lettuce in advance or whatever, because it would go bad before I use it all. Plus, it's a lot of work to very first get into the swing of things but I'm told it's super easy once you get the hang of it. I am going to do it all out for the next 2 months and see if the work is worth it. I'm also going to try to learn more recipes that use the same ingredients so that I can buy more in bulk. I'll keep you all updated on my progress.

And with that I am completely caught up with everything I've wanted to blog about in the past 2 months. 12 posts in 24 hours has to be some sort of record. I hope you enjoyed the ride :)

Children's Books Date Night

Ever since Lydia was born, or even since I was pregnant, our date nights have lacked their usual creativity/spontaneity. So I decided I would put forth the effort to plan date night. I got several children storybooks and poems and had an activity that went along with each one. You'll notice that sometimes it's a real stretch to link the activity to the book, but I tried. Anyway, Robert would choose a book randomly not knowing what the activity was that went along with it and that's what we would do. I purposefully picked double the amount of stories/activities we would need so that we'll be able to do the ones we didn't get to another date night.

The evening started out with Robert picking this book about letters...

So we wrote quick letters to my missionary brother Preston

Then Robert picked this poem...

Out of this book...

So we played a game of Settlers. Get it? Like you SETTLE a NEW WORLD. As always, I won :)

Then Robert picked Green Eggs and Ham

So we went and tried a restaurant we'd never been to before, El Azteca.

It was good, not great, but good. Probably the closest to Arizona quality Mexican food we've had since we've been here (which sad to say, isn't saying much. Poor Utah lives too far away from the border), and it was cheap too. We like El Azteca here or there! We like El Azteca ANYWHERE!!

Then Robert picked this poem...

And since it was about a monkey, which is an animal, we went to the Bean Life Science Museum.

Scary Robert!

One of my favorite parts about Provo is the Bell Tower on BYU campus. It's located right across the street from the Bean Museum and when we came out someone was playing it, so I recorded a small blurb...

Then Robert chose this book...

So we returned home to build this puzzle the way Grover is building things throughout the book (I know, this was one of the stretches)
After that we called it a night. We had a lot of fun, and this will be continued on our date night in 2 Fridays! :)

Disclaimer: I did not come up with this idea all on my own. I did this on a double date I went on in high school with Tyson Smith and Ryan H./Kara Schneider. However, for mine and Robert's date I did choose my own books and the corresponding activities (except for Green Eggs and Ham).

Knowledge is Power

I'M GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!!!! I'm so excited about this! I have applied to transfer to BYU in January, but possibly won't make it in because my cumulative college GPA is right on the edge of the fence (3.67 and they like transfer students to be at 3.7) I'll know for sure by Halloween at the latest. If I don't get in for winter, I'll for sure get in for spring because starting spring semester they are changing the way they look at transfer students so that anything above 3.5 will be acceptable. Either way, I'll be able to graduate with Robert in April 2012 with a Bachelors in Family Life with a Family Studies emphasis and a Music Minor. YAY!!!!
I've already started with 2 online Independent Study courses, Biology and American Heritage. I've never been a huge fan of online courses and History has always been my least favorite, but I'm doing my best to just work hard and get it over and done with. I'll let you know how that goes.

Deer in the Headlights

So you know how on some digital cameras before you take a picture there is that little red light that shines to help the camera focus? Well, every time Lydia notices it she gets mesmerized by it and it puts her in a daze for a few seconds. When that happens, you get the following funny yet oh so adorable pictures.



However, if you wait long enough after said red light to actually snap the picture, you will normally get a great one :)

My baby is Beautiful!!!

3rd Annual Hall Reunion

September 18th and 19th we had the 3rd Annual Hall Reunion at Camp Lo Mia in Pine, AZ. Robert and I left Friday at noon, drove to Mesa and got there at about 11, left Mesa at noon on Saturday and drove up to Pine, then left Pine in the afternoon on Sunday and drove back up to Utah. So it was a weekend full of driving, but it was well worth the trip.

Trew loves me! I'm pretty sure I'm his favorite Aunt :)

The winners for making Lydia smile and laugh the most at the reunion are my bro-in-law Shay and my niece Anna. Lydia is looking at Shay in these pictures.

My nephews Ben and Caleb. When did these boys grow up?? They're not babies anymore. They're little boys. All of the kids are getting so big!

The Alder kids (my nieces and nephews through my oldest sister Christi) pulled a prank on Robert for the program. They ask him to be their table and then they order some water, put the cups full of water on his back and then get up and leave. They did this 2 years ago to Preston. It's always so funny!

Nothing like a little Too-Tee-Tah to get a party started.

My little sisters and nieces got Robert to do Little Bunny Froo-Froo - The Adult Version. It was a side of Robert my family had never seen.

The Queen of the Clan - My Grandma Hall. She is an extraordinary woman. Without her our family wouldn't be as strong as it is.

Crazy nieces and nephews and a few other cousins

I stayed up late playing card games with this character :)

Ever wonder why we Wilcken women are "so good with children" or "make such great mothers?" This picture says it all. We have YEARS of grueling hands on training. I think Breanna is the best babysitter/future mom we've turned out yet.
My sisters, Mom, 2 nieces, and I all sang a song together for the Sunday meeting.

Nephews Taevin and Crue. Again I can't believe how big these boys are getting.

My Aunt Terri, Aunt Marsha, Mom, and Aunt Pam. I love Aunt Pam in this picture!!

My nephew, the cute chunker, Case Welchman. He's 9 months and is in size 2T clothes!

Lydia getting loves from her cousin (my niece) Rylie

And of course Lydia, the cutest baby girl there! ;)

Lydia fell right asleep with my dad at the meeting

Loves from Aunt Christi

Nieces Anna and Cami juggling the babies. They haven't quite finished their years of training so they don't look quite as natural at it yet as Breanna does ;) Don't worry a few more years and they might even surpass Breanna.

And one more cute pic of Lydia, just because it's always good to end on a Lydia note. :) I think she looks like the Gerber baby in this picture.

Always a fun time! I can't wait until next year!!

4 Months Old

Lydia is more and more entertaining the more she grows and develops.

• Whenever she is on her back, her feet are straight up in the air and she's playing with her toes, even when she is sleeping. (Note the reason why these are the best pictures I could get of her)
• She has become our little soprano. She squeals all of the time whether she's happy, sad, mad, bored, or excited.
• She can easily roll over now from front to back and back to front.
• Church is becoming more and more... fun? It used to be that as long as she was entertained she was quiet, but now she constantly makes noise even when she's happy. We have to bring at least 3 toys everywhere we go because she will play for each one for a while and then get bored with it so we have to rotate them.
• She likes to spit, not just drool. Spit. Observe...
  
  

• She has already done some scooting around, although she hasn't figured out how to use her arms so she puts her head down, pushes with her legs, and scoots on her face. She did this all of the time for a while, but I think she figured out that that hurts her face because she hasn't been doing it as much any more. I'm crossing my fingers that it will take at least another month or 2 before she starts to full out crawl, because I know once she does there will never be a peaceful moment around our house.
• Her clogged tear duct cleared up so no more gross eye boogers. Horray!
• She is still doing great through the night. For the most part she'll sleep from about 11:00pm to about 8:00am. Occasionally she'll wake up once at 3:00am for an hour then go back to sleep. It's wonderful.
• Shortly after my kidney infection I dried up, so she's on 100% formula now. She's doing fine with it. I wish I could have breastfed for longer, but what can you do.
• She weighs 15 pounds 3 ounces (75th percentile) height is 26 1/4 inches (95th percentile) and her head circumference is 40.5 centimeters (25th percentile). So she's tall and I guess has a small head, but I think she is as cute as can be and doesn't look the least bit disproportional.
• She did so great with her 4 month shots. She cried for maybe a minute then fell asleep and once she woke up she was completely back to normal. She did better than I did!

We love our baby girl!!

Lydia at 3 months

I didn't do an amateur photo shoot for Lydia when she turned 3 months. I'm a slacker. And since I'll be doing a 4 month post in a minute or at the latest tomorrow, I'm not going to describe in detail what Lydia was like at 3 months. I will say that at 3 months Lydia weighed about 13 pounds and was about 24.5 inches long. It was also just a week or so before she hit the 3 month mark that she started laughing. August 4th at 4:30pm to be exact. Here is the first video footage we got of her giggles :)

This ambush of posts will have to continue tomorrow. It's time for bed.

Bee-Phobia

Robert hates bees. One Sunday morning we were running late to get to church and Robert had set Lydia in her carseat on the ground while he opened the car door. Then, he noticed a bee flying around and getting really close to Lydia. He bravely stifled his fear and swatted the bee away with the clipboard he was holding, but then his fear returned so he quickly threw all of his stuff in the car and bent down to get Lydia when... well see for yourself...

He didn't just rip his pants. He exploded out of them. No joke. It even sounded more like an explosion than a rip. We both died laughing. He quickly, with his back to the wall, ran back inside to change so we could head to church. On the way I told him that the rip was so big that we could fit a basketball through it. He said there was no way, so when we got home we tried it. Sure enough, I'm always right :)

Mommy and Daddy came for a visit!!

My Mom and Dad came up to visit for Katie and Mike's daughter, Alena, and my birthdays the last weekend in August. It was so much fun to have them up here. One of the days they were here we went to Temple Square and Dad wanted to be sure to take this picture on the steps of the Salt Lake Temple in the exact pose and on the same step that they took a picture on their wedding day. I thought it was really sweet. I can honestly say that while they were up here it was the most relaxed and happiest I had seen them in a long time. That alone was the best birthday present ever. I hope they come up again soon.

August trip to AZ Part 3 - Misc pictures

There was a classic monsoon season rain storm while we were down, so of course Robert and I played in it :) We ran down to the end of the street, splashed in the puddles, and ran back. We were soaked to the bone within 30 seconds.

We had my Grandma's 87th birthday party. She is such an amazing woman!

These are my sisters Breanna and Aubrie and MY MOM playing Just Dance. Classic!!

Aunt Shauna and Aunt Darla both had babies since the last time we had been down. So we got to meet Madison and Mason (Aunt Shauna had twins) and Kyera for the first time. They were all adorable.

Aunt Shauna and Lydia :)

The twins were just waking up and squirming so they are kind of positioned funny (especially Madison, she makes me laugh in this picture :) but look at how big Lydia looks! The twins are just as big in this pic as Lydia was when she was born. When did she grow up? How did that happen!?!

All ready to swim! I love the little swimsuits I got from my baby shower for her :)

A picture of Robert holding Kylee holding Lydia. Kylee had been begging us since Lydia was born to do this. We finally got it done.

And that was our August trip to AZ :)